in my experienceSeptember 24, 2003 9:58 AM
This idea of going wireless with the iPod and removing the hard drive is the least consumer oriented music idea I have seen so far (outside of lawsuits). What follows is a totally knee jerk reaction to a manufactured business model that seems to me to be an effort to take control away from consumers and place it in the hands of of industry.
Riddle me this: What would you get if you crossed a BlackBerry with an iPod? The answer: The future of the music business. Let me explain. Imagine, if you will, an iPod as a wireless digital ladle. It would dip into a nearly bottomless stream of continual music, scooping up any song you wanted, when you wanted, where you wanted. There would be no need for CDs, hard drives, or any other storage device. And trying to capture such music would be about as easy as trapping mist in a jar. Every song would contain a digital expiration date, so, over time, they would evaporate.Riddle me this buddy, what happens when people see that there is a subscription model (no ownership) and the music is transient (again, no ownership, and this time no control) and no one buys into the business model? What then? Oh yeah, the Invisible Hands bitch slap you.
What happens when programming your digital, wireless only music device needs to be done in the field. Well, we can deal with by making a nice iTunes like interface that makes playlist editing easy beyond compare.... but.... this is a wireless only device, right? Oh yeah, indeed it is, and thus we'll need a nice QWERTY keyboard to edit our playlists, and demand new music when we want it... oh wait, I'm out of the service area? I downloaded that track yesterday, and I want to listen to it again, and I can't? Why can't I just store the music I bought on this thing and listen to it when ever I want?
Good luck answering those questions Mr Recording Industry. In the meantime, my iPod and I will do exactly what we want, when we want to do it, and wherever we please to be.
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